


Burning through my darkest night

by inthebeginningtherewasM



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Canon Divergence, F/M, I'm Bad At Tagging, also all the angst, badass!MelindaMay, because I am the angst-queen and cannot write fluff apparently, because she's awesome and we all know it, is it Major Character Death if we know he gets resurrected later, let's not think too much about the timeline, what the hell did May do during the battle of New York
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-19
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2019-09-22 20:27:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17066528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inthebeginningtherewasM/pseuds/inthebeginningtherewasM
Summary: Is this her fault? Because she has walled herself up behind a stupid desk in stupid Administrations? Because she refuses to go back into the field? Because she didn't want to see combat?After Phil gets stabbed by Loki on that helicarrier Melinda May has a score to settle.





	Burning through my darkest night

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, sweetpeas!
> 
> Okay, so, I'm kind of new to this fandom (because I'm always late to the fandom, I don't know why) and this is my first fic for it. The whole idea was that I was wondering what May was doing during the battle of New York and this is what came of all my pondering. I'm kind of nervous that I messed up the characterization and I re-edited and rewrote this about 13 times and I'm not even sure if it still makes sense but flip it, I'm gonna post this now. Cheers!

There are whispers that follow her wherever she goes. She can feel their eyes on her back when she gets up to copy files and receipts and hears their mumbles from behind closed doors. There are freshfaced agents barely out of the academy that get paraded past her office, glancing curiously and flusterdly sputtering greetings. There are strange agents she has never met before hovering over her cubicle too. (She sends them all away with a sneer or a glare.)

It shouldn't bother her. It shouldn't. And it doesn't because she is doing her own work, doing what she can to keep the world safe, even if it just means that she has to deny news broadcasts and has footage destroyed and some faux story cooked up to mask whatever billionaire playboys do with their new tech toys in the sky over Los Angeles nowadays.

It's fine.

Except for when it's not.

There are days when she feels like punching all those people, when the threads that hold her together are so thin a single breath of air could snap them all. She wants to scream and shout and let all this pain and all this anger out. She wants them to quiver in fear before her, to see her as the monster she knows she is, wants them to cower and run. Let them all run. She wants them to go away, because they all don't know what she has done, because they all think of her as some kind of hero, somebody who is strong and fast and fearless, as someone who can move Heaven and Earth to protect somebody. And she can. She could. But she never will again.

 

∘◦ ☆◦∘

 

There is still one person who doesn't run from her. Never has. Who meets her snarl or her emotionless mask with a smile and a promise for a cup of tea. Someone who doesn't still see the blood covering her hands and gently bumps her shoulder with his own when leading her out of the building to his favourite coffeeshop. Who makes bad jokes about her job, tells her stories about gods and warriors in an increasingly exasperated voice and doesn't tiptoe and whisper around her. Phil is the best friend she's ever had. Phil, who doesn't press and doesn't scold and doesn't frown. Who doesn't push her to go back in the field and doesn't ask questions if she isn't ready to answer. (She never is.) (He _does_ „accidentally“ trip that asshole Henderson from Operations who makes a crude remark about stupid, tiny, pencil pushing Asian women who don't approve his outlandish hotel bill though. That makes her feel warmer inside than she has felt in weeks.) Phil who offers a shoulder to cry on should she ever need it and an ear to listen should she ever be ready to talk. (He'd probably lend her other bodyparts as well, if she'd just ask. He's selfless like that, she thinks, briefly wondering if she can call and ask him to spar with her in one of the trainingrooms. Maybe a drink afterwards. She discards the thought a moment later. He's probably on the other side of the earth anyway.) Still, with all these whispers and accusations and rumours and false awe, she is glad that she has one person left who doesn't judge.

 

∘◦ ☆◦∘

 

And then there is a big operation going on. An enormous helicarrier ascending into the air, with the manpower of a small city and technology enough to equip a whole country. She doesn’t know too much about it. Not yet. Who knows how many miles of red tape she will have to spin later. But she will cross that bridge when she gets to it. Another thing she has lost over the years, she thinks. Her curiosity. The need to know. Oh, well.

Phil calls her, all exited, because he shook hands with Captain America. When there is time he wants to ask him to sign his Captain America collection cards. Melinda shakes her head at that. He’s telling her about all the equipment the carrier has loaded, about Romanoff and Stark and Banner, because no matter where she works now, she still has her Level 7 clearance and he can tell her most of what’s going on with him. He’s dangling between seriousness and making jokes and she rolls her eyes at him even though he cannot see it. Long after she has hung up the phone, she will notice that there is still a fond smile ghosting her lips. She wipes it away.

 

∘◦ ☆◦∘

 

About an hour after Phil called her, hell breaks loose. Transmissions are short and scarce, the information of what’s happening on the helicarrier is trickling slowly through the comms at Administrations. People are standing in small doves around single agents who have live feeds or a connection to the people on board, there is terrified shouting and muffled screams and agents clinging to each other, crying.

Melinda fidgets in her seat. At some point she stands up and joins a group of agents and for once nobody spares her a second glance. There is not much information coming through. She yearns to run back to her desk, pick up the phone and just call him. Make sure he's okay, wants to hear exhaustion and a smile in his voice, wants him to tell her that they have everything under control. That he is fine. He is her last friend. She needs him to be safe. She needs it more than anything. More than anything she has needed in the past, ever since Bahrain. Her heart is beating too fast. She can almost feel the blood rushing through her veins. So she balls her hands to fists, controls her breathing. In. Out. In. Out. He will be fine. He has to be.

 

∘◦ ☆◦∘

 

"May?"

"Maria?"

"I didn't know if..."

"What is going on?"

"I'm so sorry."

"Don't say it."

"I'm so sorry, May. He's...he's gone."

"Why are you calling _me_?"

"I just- I thought you should know. I'm sorry."

"How?"

"Loki. Coulson faced him alone. And he just...stabbed him."

"He went in alone?"

"He tried to help Thor. Came at Loki with a Destroyer gun. Hit him too. But - it was not enough."

"I see."

"I'm sorry, May."

"Not your fault."

"Still, I'm sorry. I know how much you-"

"Thanks for the call, Maria. Talk to you later."

 

∘◦ ☆◦∘

 

Her last friend is dead.

 

∘◦ ☆◦∘

 

At first Melinda feels nothing. She sits down at her desk and stares blankly at her computer screen and the papers scattered over her desktop. There is a numbness coursing through her veins, pumped further and further with every beat of her heart until she doesn't feel her feet or her hands anymore. Dead. Dead. Deaddeaddeaddeaddead. The words are pulsing in her head like a beating drum. She hears nothing else. This shouldn't be a surprise really. Ever since their first day of the Academy - since before their first day of Academy, to be honest - she has known that they could die a horrible death at any second. That they could lose the other on the way to protect and shield the world from evil and chaos and destruction. Like they have lost so many others. And now it's him. Gone. Gonegonegonegonegone.

She breaks a pen.

Is this her fault? Because she has walled herself up behind a stupid desk in stupid Administrations? Because she refuses to go back into the field? Because she didn't want to see combat? Would it have turned out differently had she been with him on that helicarrier?

Probably not.

(Maybe.)

Feeling returns into her hands. Her throat closes up and her eyes sting. She beats it down with that self-control Phil always praises or mocks her for. (Has praised. Has mocked.) Breathe. Melinda throws the broken pieces of the pen still in her hands into the bin. She feels cold for a second. Icy shivers running down her spine. And then there is heat. It's anger, scorching hot in every cell of her body. Burning, biting, roaring in her blood. It glues her heart together, holds onto it, before the splittered parts can be washed away by the current. She digs her nails into her palms until she draws blood, balls her fists until her knuckles turn white and her muscles tremble.

Melinda stands up.

 

∘◦ ☆◦∘

 

She wants to punch a god. The thought alone is ridiculous really, but right now she cannot think about anything else. The storm inside her doesn’t subside, is not to be calmed, is fuelled by a small glowing memory in the back of her head. Phil would try to stop her. He trusts her with so many things, knows her abilities but this he would not like. (Trusted; knew) But she cannot stop. She would probably use elbows and shoulders to get past him if he was to try and stop her, would growl and scowl and sneer at him for trying to hold her back. So she growls and scowls and shoves at the Phil in her head and strides all the way down to the basement where she has a locker. She gets rid of her sensible white blouse and the business slacks and the forsaken heels, grabs the bag from the bottom of the locker and dons the comfortable leather S.H.I.E.L.D operatives uniform she hasn’t worn in so long. There is a gun in there somewhere too, she knows. Old habits die hard.

 

∘◦ ☆◦∘

 

It takes her far too long to get from the field office to Manhattan. New York has fallen into chaos. The streets are a battlefield, chaos and destruction on each corner, wherever Melinda looks. Fires and craters like in a war zone, screaming civilians running for cover, car wrecks, crumpled bodies, debris, blood, sirens, law enforcement who have no clue what to do, shattered glass, exploding fire hydrants. And over everything a hole in the sky like a gaping mouth, spitting out monsters.

They are grey and armoured and _alien_ and they destroy whatever stands in their way. They don’t distinguish between buildings and people, they just attack everything. Melinda grits her teeth. Loki’s last known position was at Stark Tower but that basically still means that she has to cross half of Manhattan to get there. And there are aliens everywhere. So she takes the gun out of her holster and is on her way. There is no stopping now.

 

∘◦ ☆◦∘

Bullets work. They do, but there are much too many monsters for her to shoot them all. She has already gone through two of her mags and soon will be out of ammo. Which is why that piece of pipe comes in handy. She brandishes it like a sword and stabs aliens. It's ridiculous. (Phil would get a kick out of seeing her like this and make jokes. She just knows it.) She has the gun in her left hand and the pipe in her right and not for the first time she is glad that she is light and fast and that she still kept going rounds in the training rooms at night and her martial arts skills therefore have not decreased over the last years.

She is out of breath though. Three blocks and her arms are getting tired and her senses are getting dull and her aim is getting to be a little off. Shit.

 

∘◦ ☆◦∘

 

The shield is nothing more than an oversized dinnerplate painted in red and white and blue. It came out of nowhere and bounced off a building before it gets stuck between two pieces of rubble. It’s also much too heavy for her to chuck around all day but it deflects bullets and energy beams and spears and what else those aliens are throwing at her. Good piece of engineering. She doesn’t have time for them anyway. (She lost her “sword” a couple of buildings back. By that time it was too slick with alien blood to hold onto.) Using the shield also means that she can focus her force, that she can give precise shots and doesn't have to move too much. So she will do that until she can give it back to its rightful owner.

Phil would get all pale and stare at her if he knew though. If from excitement that she was using Captain America's _shield_ or from terror because she was using _Captain America's_ shield, she isn't sure. The thought makes her smile though. She can almost hear his rambling - which is bad because it distracts her. The energy beam is deflected by the shield but the sheer force of the hit and her poorly placed footing throws her back against an abandoned, burning bus. Melinda feels dizzy. She tastes blood in her mouth and can feel it dribble down her chin. But there is no time. She has a mission. No time to rest, no time to freeze up. Freezing up will get you killed. That's one of the first things you learn at the Academy. She reaches for the last magazine and puts it into her weapon. And then she shoots that damn alien that has just tried to off her right in the ugly face.

 

∘◦ ☆◦∘

 

Melinda runs into Nat and Clint, who are hiding behind some car wrecks, having a little breather after what seems like has been an ugly standoff with some Chitauri. That's what they are calling the aliens apparently. There is also Captain America. He's wearing a strange blue full-body suit and a weird toolbelt and for some reason seeing him makes Melinda want to cry. Phil would love to see his hero in action. (Would have loved.) She desperately wants to stop and just collapse onto the street, right there next to Natasha but she has a job to do. She has a job to do, that nobody has given her and that nobody wants her to do and she is tired and angry. She is so angry still. And even beating up and shooting aliens is not helping. So she has to find that Asgardian asshole and punch him, put all this anger into him because he is the one who has robbed her of her last friend. This is why she is doing this. This is why she is on the street and not in her office behind her desk.

Melinda walks up to Captain America. He is ridiculously tall and much too good looking for all she can see. She doesn't answer his questions about who she is or if she needs medical attention. He asks her why she's here, seems to get more and more unsure about her. But she just shoves his shield into his arms, raises an eyebrow and wipes the blood off her chin. She looks around, looks at Nat and Clint, still sitting down, Nat trying to reach Iron Man over the comms, Clint checking his arrows. Melinda is almost out of bullets which is a problem, obviously. But then she spots a severed Chitauri arm that is still clinging to its weapon and tilts her head. That could work.

 

∘◦ ☆◦∘

 

There are still civilians on the street. Why are there still civilians on the street? You would think that an alien invasion would have all the people off the street but here they are.

Melinda is on her way, a Chitauri blaster in her hand and a borrowed commlink in her ear. (Nat gave it to her so she would know what was going on, probably hoping she would be available for backup but that is not what Melinda is here to do. Melinda is on her way to punch a god.) The civilians are a problem though. They are another stone in her way to Stark Tower, a stone she would normally step over if she had to. But she cannot. It's not what she was trained to do. It's not what she would do, deep down in her core where there is still good. (At least that's what Phil has told her over and over. That she is good, whatever else she has done. She is _good_.) She needs to protect these people. No matter if it delays her journey, she is not going to leave them defenseless. So she runs, the blaster in her arms, aims, fires. The energy beam kills the first Chitauri and alerts every other of her presence. Well, at least this gives the people time to run.

She can see a mother hauling her son off the street, the woman hugging him fiercely before she turns around and shouts a "thank you" in Melinda's direction. It gives her pause. And a warm feeling in her chest, somewhere in the mid of all this rage inside her. Because for a moment she actually glimpses that old joy she once felt for her job. Helping people. Protecting people. Phil is probably chuckling in satisfaction at this.

 

∘◦ ☆◦∘

 

The block she's standing on is clear for now. Melinda is leading people off the street. She points them in different directions, tells them to find shelter in basements and subway stations because it's best she can come up with at the moment. She gives orders to police and firemen, gets a spare mag from one of them just in case and shoots a Chitauri or two who show their hideous faces around the corners. (That Chitauri blaster gun must run with some kind of eternal alien power source. It hasn't run out of energy yet, no matter how many blasts she has fired, and Melinda sure hopes that it will stay that way. She might use it against Loki.) The police is scattering, doing what she's told them because nobody is messing with the small, tiny Asian woman with blood on her face and the all-destroying blaster gun.

Over the comms she hears occasional chatter from the Avengers (God, is that a name, Phil came up with? It sounds a little like a name Phil would have come up with. Ridiculous man.) and she is making her way through the streets and towards her goal. The storm inside her is still roaring, still fighting, still pooling in her stomach. It's calmer now but it's there, a silent force beckoning her forward, just like that image of Phil, leaning against her desk, smiling, animatedly telling her about this or that. She can't just accept.... maybe she needs to. Maybe she needs to do what Phil told her so many years ago in Bahrain and let go, but for a second she just stands in the middle of the road, her knees locked together because the thought of just giving up now, of not doing this for Phil, for herself, is just impossible. She needs to do this. She _needs_ to.

That’s the reason why she starts running again. She runs and runs and shoots and shoots and doesn't notice the tears streaming down her face.

 

∘◦ ☆◦∘

 

Everything changes when Stark's voice comes through the comms. He tells them how the Hulk beat up Loki and how S.H.I.E.L.D. showed up to take him into custody already. (Like that worked out so wonderfully last time.) It makes Melinda stop in her tracks, the words ice in her stomach. What?

And with those words everything is gone. Loki is gone. Her mission is gone.

Melinda takes deep breaths, counts in her head, tries to calm her mind. The urge is still there inside her, pulling at her, the feelings, the anger. But it has no outlet anymore. She cannot mine it, has nothing to put this hate into. What is she supposed to do now?

 

∘◦ ☆◦∘

 

Now she's actually glad that she has the commlink. She has seen Iron Man carrying Clint off to some rooftop and although she doesn’t have any long-distance weapons (beside the blaster gun but she doesn’t really know the range of that one) she has to get a better view, has to see the big picture so she can figure out what to do next. What is her next step?

It’s the first time she actually says anything over the comms, a request to Stark that he come pick her up, she’s right in the middle of the street, that is only countered by a confused “Who the hell are you?” from the Sugarrush Playboy. (That’s what she is secretly calling him. Phil laughed, when he heard her say it for the first time.) It’s Natasha who cuts Stark off, telling him to do as Melinda says and take her where she wants to go but then there is a transmission from Fury who says something about a nuke and great and mighty Iron man has something better to do than giving her a ride. Well, they have to close the whole in the sky so maybe it’s good that they are taking care of that.

 

∘◦ ☆◦∘

 

She has found the next step. Or rather the next step finds her, because it’s a child, running to her for cover. It’s alone and it’s terrified and it’s covered in soot and grime with tears streaming down its dirty face. It’s small and it’s crying and it’s clinging to her legs and for a moment Melinda doesn’t know what to do. She just stands there, reaching out for the kid with the hand that doesn’t prop the blaster against her hip and brushes its hair out of its face.

Suddenly everything shifts and in her mind pictures are swirling, memories, feelings, like somebody took a stack of cards and threw them in the air. She sees Bahrain and she sees Phil and she sees past missions and Andrew and the Academy and the woman with her son she has saved what seems ages ago but was probably only thirty minutes ago. And she sees one of those big alien creatures that drops Chitauris into the street and does so much damage her brain can’t really comprehend it. And that’s it. Melinda looks down at the child and feels the anger shifting too, feels it molding itself into determination and a fixed idea. To protect. Protect this child, protect these people, protect this city and take this fucking creature down.

 

∘◦ ☆◦∘

 

She found the child’s father and left for her new mission. She might not be able to punch Loki but she can protect the people in this city and she knows Phil would like that. She will take that monster down or die trying. (Phil wouldn’t like _that_ though.) It’s more important. (She should have known. What was she thinking?)

She finally arrives at the roof of a building, out of breath, and she sees the creature coming. She shoots the blaster gun (her aim and the range of the gun are shit) and finally throws it away because it’s not helping. There is some kind of long pipe or steel beam on the roof though. Melinda grabs it and steps onto the railing of the roof, the alien creature is coming closer. She jumps off the roof.

She wonders if she is crazy for a second – what if she misses? – but then she lands on the enormous thing, almost falling off, gripping at metal plates or bone or whatever this alien is made of, sliding, slipping, yelling. The creature is even more imposing when you are standing on top of it and Melinda has to find an attack point. She is focused, Phil is pushed out of her mind, she is determined. She is hunting. The eye. Melinda grabs the metal tighter and makes her way to the creature’s head.

 

∘◦ ☆◦∘

 And then Melinda screams. It's deep and primal and comes from somewhere in between the pieces of her broken heart.

 ∘◦ ☆◦∘

 

She drives the long metal beam right through the creature’s eye. She uses all her strength, everything her muscles will still give her, all this rage and hate and grief storming inside her and puts it into the creature. The noise it makes is terrifying, so loud it just might rupture her eardrums, so unnatural that Melinda's skin crawls. The creature bucks under her, screams and heaves in agony, the force almost throws her off if not for her iron grip on that steel beam.

It is obviously not enough to kill it but it is enough to weaken it, stop it, distract it from the people in the city, keep it from spilling more aliens for the time being. And then suddenly there is Thor, who drops out of the sky and lands on the creature with a bang, pummelling it towards the street with his hammer. (Phil had a mission recovering this hammer. Melinda remembers the calls when he was in New Mexico and kept complaining about the summer heat.) She holds on to the steel beam, grips one of the creature’s metal plates for good measure. They crash onto the pavement and Melinda finally gets thrown off, the street coming dangerously close when a strong hand grabs her arm and catches her. (Maria had said something about Thor’s arms. They are very muscular indeed.)

The Hulk shows up and that’s when it’s pretty much over for the Chitauri creature. With her steel beam in his eye and the Hulk breaking its neck (okay, her beam might not have anything to do with it), not even an armoured alien can survive.

Melinda nods at the other two, who race off towards…somewhere. She isn’t sure and she doesn’t really want to know. She thinks she hears somebody’s voice through her commlink – is that cheering? - but there is also a sudden ringing in her ears that makes it unclear what is being said. Her knees buckle and she is out of breath. Her vision is blurred and there is chaos and destruction everywhere. Maybe that’s enough for today.

 

∘◦ ☆◦∘

 

And then it’s over. The sky is normal and blue again, without that gaping hole, there is excited chatter over the comms and somebody talking about Shwarma and Melinda doesn’t know what to do with herself anymore. The rage is gone. Put into an alien monster. Now she’s only tired.

 

∘◦ ☆◦∘

 

It's three in the morning when Melinda is finally in her apartment again. The commute home was a disaster, getting out of New York a shitshow. She isn't keen on writing a report on the events of the invasion but this is something she will think about another time.

All the adrenaline has left her body. She mechanically makes herself a cup of tea, sits down on the sofa and stares at it rather than drinking it. She doesn't switch on a light, just sits in the relative darkness of the livingroom and lets the events of the day pass.

Chitauri monsters and Avengers and helicarriers and gunfire and smoke and blood and Phil-is-dead. PhilisdeadPhilisdeadPhilisdead. It's like now, in the calmness of her apartment, the words finally have meaning. She's lost her friend. He's dead. Really and truly and it's like her heart shatters all over again. Now that the rage isn't holding her together anymore. It's the pain of Bahrain but worse, more personal, more vicious, the love she has felt for this man now strangling and choking her.

Melinda gasps for air, throws her arms around herself, shakes her head to ban all the images, to shake off his face and his smile that was once comfort but now only hurts so much. _So much_. She wants him back, wants him to come through the door, wants to tell him about this hellhole that was New York, wants him to laugh at her or tell her off for this behaviour or just wrap her up in an embrace like he would have if he could. She wants to hear his voice, wants his ramblings, wants him back like she has never wanted anything ever before. She feels irrational and childish and helpless and hopeless and she just wants her friend back. She wants him back.

Grief pounds into her like a freight train, wave upon wave crashing into her, hurting her because her last friend is gone and now she is truly alone. Alone to face the world and alone to face the rest of her life. She didn't even realize how much she has needed the knowledge that he existed and that he was there for her, until now. How much she held onto it. (She wants him back. _Give him back!_ )

It takes too long for the sobs and cries to subside. Too long for her breathing to even out. Too long for her to cry herself to sleep. Sleep is merciful. Maybe. Life is definitely not.

 

∘◦ ☆◦∘

 

“Agent May?”

“Director?”

“Heard you saw quite some action today.”

“Probably rumours, sir.”

“We have a witness that claims to have seen a small Asian woman jump off a building and on top of one of those Chitauri space whale thingies. Apparently she speared it with a lamppost.”

“I will organize for this gentleman to get psychological help, sir. First thing tomorrow morning.”

“Did you get to punch Loki in the face, by the way?”

“No, sir. Didn’t even see him.”

“Damn. Sorry about that, May.”

“Is there a reason you called, sir?”

“I have a mission for you, Agent May.”

“Sir, I’m no longer a field agent.”

“Not a field agent, huh? Do I sound like I give a rat’s ass about that right now, May? Also, this is not about you, this is about Coulson.”

“Coulson, sir?”

“What do you know about project T.A.H.I.T.I.?”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> So, what do you think? Comments are highly appreciated, I basically live off them. <3


End file.
